Trade
Planting and borders
What takes on wet peat soil, and what is gone again within three years.
A border that fails to take is almost never a watering problem. It is a question of the layer the roots land in. Under a garden in Noord lies a made-up layer of sand, clay and rubble, and there is often a compacted band within it, left by site preparation or by years spent under a terrace. Roots stop there. Before anything goes in, we break that band open to around forty centimetres and improve the soil with whatever that spot actually needs.
Then comes the planting plan, and that is a list of species and numbers rather than a mood board. You get it on paper, so that in four years you still know what is standing there and when to cut it back. We plant at five to nine perennials per square metre depending on species, which is the density at which a border closes within two seasons without leaving room for weeds.
What we do not do is lay weed fabric under a border. It stops weeds for one year and works against you afterwards: a layer of leaf litter and humus builds on top of it in which the same weeds root perfectly well, while the plants underneath cannot spread. A densely planted border does the same job without leaving plastic in your soil in ten years' time.
Closed over at most
50%
We will not build a garden that is more than half hard surface. On this ground the water has to go somewhere.
Lead time
3 to 6
Working days for a garden up to a hundred square metres, spread over two weeks.
We come back within
12mo
Anything we plant that fails to take, we replace within a year at no cost.
What you can check yourself
Dig a forty-centimetre hole in February and look into it the next morning. If there is water in it, that is your water table in the wettest month, and it decides the species list.
What goes into the ground
Improved soil to forty centimetres, no weed fabric, and a planting plan with botanical names on it so that in four years you still know what is there.
What handover means
A planting plan on paper, a watering schedule for the first year, and the agreement that we come back within twelve months for whatever has not taken.
First whether it can be done, then what it costs
Photograph the spot where the water stands. That answers half the question on its own.
The background, if you want to read further
Which species belong here follows from the soil, not from fashion. On wet peat and clay the natural woodland type is alder carr: black alder as the dominant tree, with downy birch and tree-form willows such as white willow and osier alongside it. Alder tolerates a permanently high water table and stands through winter with wet feet without complaint. The province of North Holland names alder specifically as a local tree for yard planting in this landscape.
On the other side stand the species that struggle here structurally. Roots take their oxygen from air held in the soil; if that soil stays too wet for too long they suffocate and the plant can no longer take up nutrients. Dutch forestry researchers described that mechanism in June 2024, and it is exactly what happens in a Noord garden after a wet winter. The city’s own groundwater framework names root rot explicitly as the risk that grows when the water table rises.
In practice that means: on the low-lying parts we plant alder, willow, hawthorn and hazel, plus perennials that can take a wet winter. On the higher, drier parts far more is possible. What we do not do is apply one species list to the whole of Noord; two gardens three hundred metres apart can differ by half a metre in water table.
Questions about planting and borders
What does planting cost per square metre?
We charge 45 to 110 euro per square metre including Dutch VAT (btw) for a border, soil improvement and planting included. The spread sits almost entirely in the choice of plants: at five to nine perennials per square metre and three to fifteen euro per plant, the plant material alone ranges from fifteen to a hundred and thirty-five euro per square metre.
What happens if a plant does not take?
We replace it within twelve months of planting at no cost, provided the garden was watered through the first season according to the schedule you were given. That is not an accreditation and not an insurance policy: it is an agreement between you and us, and it appears in our terms in the same words as here.
Can I have a beech hedge here?
On the higher, drier parts yes. On a wet spot we will not plant one: beech copes poorly with prolonged wet soil, and the problem cannot be solved with watering or feeding because it is about oxygen and not nutrients. In such a place we propose hornbeam or a mixed hedge instead, and we tell you why.
Why no weed fabric?
Because it postpones rather than solves. In the first year the fabric holds weeds back; after that a layer of leaf litter and humus forms on top of it in which the same weeds root happily, while the plants beneath cannot spread and the soil life is cut off. In ten years there is plastic in your garden that has to come out by hand. Planting densely does the same job better.
Torn between two solutions
Put both to us. We will say which of the two lasts longer on this ground, and why.
The neighbourhoods where we do this
What this trade means in practice differs per neighbourhood. The page for your own one says what applies where you live.
What else people call us for
Your request
Six fields and a photo. With the area and the type of garden we can name a band before coming out; without those two, any answer is a guess.
Start with a photo
One photo from the back door showing the whole garden almost always saves a trip. Send two if you like: one of the whole and one of the spot where it goes wrong.